E-passports for Vietnamese citizens expected by 2020

Vietnamese workers in Nghe An province flock to immigration offices to get the necessary authentication to return to work in their host countries after the 2018 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnamese citizens are set to enjoy faster,
more convenient and more secure border crossings with new biometric passports
to be rolled out by 2020.

The new system is detailed in the draft law on the entry and exit of Vietnamese
citizens that the public security ministry completed earlier this week. The
ministry is seeking public feedback.

Article 7 of the draft law says new
biometric passports (or e-passports) – including official, diplomatic and
ordinary passports – will be embedded with a microchip that stores the holder’s
personal information, fingerprint scans, ID photo and a digital signature from
the issuing agency.

E-passports are supposedly much more secure and harder to forge compared to
their conventional counterparts, and the microchip would be compatible with
e-passport readers in most countries around the world.

More than 15 countries had already migrated to this new type of passport by the
middle of 2018.

The number of Vietnamese travelling overseas for study, work or tourism has
increased steadily in recent times, from 6.1 million in 2013 to 7.7 million in
2016 and 9.2 million in 2017.

Applicants will just need to fill out forms to get a new e-passport, either
online or at the police’s municipal and provincial immigration offices.

The public security ministry said that while the Government previously approved
the project to produce and issue e-passports to Vietnamese citizens, the bill
was necessary because there was no legal document regulating the process.

The bill, with 39 articles arranged into seven chapters, will take effect in
July 2020 if the National Assembly chooses to adopt it.

The draft law also seeks to replace the current travel document (giay thong
hanh) with temporary passports, which would expire after one year and serve the
same purpose as ordinary passports. They would be used when a Vietnamese
citizen wants to travel to a foreign country while their passport is lost or
expired, or else leaves a foreign country (either voluntarily or forcibly) when
the host country does not allow residency.

The issuance of temporary passports is proof of the Government of Vietnam’s
focus on protecting its citizens in that event that the requirements for a
long-term passport cannot be met, the draft law said.

Representative offices of the Vietnam Government in foreign countries will
issue the temporary passports in consultation with the immigration department
of the public security ministry.

Travel documents, valid for one year, could still be issued for Vietnamese
citizens who want to travel to countries sharing a border with Vietnam or to
any country involved in an international agreement to which Vietnam is a party.

Anyone who wishes to send their ideas and feedback on the draft law should log
on to this site hosted by the Government’s Portal. — VNS/VNA